The longest-serving current leader of a major national political party is looking a little careworn, with spin-doctors struggling to sell their chap as the fresh-faced change that Britain needs. David Cameron’s hairline isn’t all that’s receding, as a spate of opinion polls show the Tory lead diminishing as Gordon Brown closes and a hung parliament appears to be, not just a possibility, but a probability for the first time since 1974. Politics is a marathon, not a sprint, and the Bullingdon Boy who was fast out of the traps in December 2005 when elected Tory leader is visibly flagging as the finishing line approaches.
I can’t help but wonder how the gap might be narrower had Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt, the Goon and Blewitt of “new” Labour, hadn’t temporarily thrust into reverse the political recovery early last month with their ridiculous “snow plot”. I suspect the full murky picture of that episode, including the involvement of very senior Cabinet ministers, won’t be painted until after the general election. Should Labour be pipped at the post, followed by Cameron squeaking into Downing Street from where he’d unleash hell on working people who rely on a Labour government, the Labour Party has a duty to remember who to blame. Labour’s Militant moderate tendency – Blairite Trots who predict defeat then recklessly seek to turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy – must not escape their share of responsibility. The Labour left has behaved impeccably. If anything, it has been too loyal.
Yet what’s most striking in Westminster is the visible loss of confidence in the Conservative Party, the swagger evaporating as doubts creep in. To fail to win an overall majority after the deepest recession for 80 years would be a humiliation for Cameron. The Tory leader who confessed he “messed-up” on handouts for married couples suddenly doesn’t know whether he’s cutting or spending. A European referendum isn’t the only cast-iron guarantee rusting badly as the harsh glare of sustained scrutiny exposes the lack of substance behind the spin.
The showdown in May deserves to be decided on the substance of policies, but it’s pointless to deny the importance of personalities. Here, too, the Conservatives
are in trouble. The intention of the spinners in the Millbank Tower Labour occupied in 1997 was to run a presidential campaign – to present Cameron as the Tony Blair of 2010. Clifford Singer’s brilliant poster-mocking MyDavidCameron.com website cruelly exposed the weakness of the strategy. Any last vestiges of a mystique protecting Cameron – the idea that here was a new and serious potential Prime Minister– disappeared as he was turned into a national figure of fun.
Buller Boys hurt when they’re the butt of ribaldry. The £500,000 billboard blitz, with its airbrushed photo of a tie-less Cameron, now symbolises the vacuity of economic and political thinking he’s seeking to ditch publicly. The focus groups are telling him that an electorate which may think debt needs cutting is equally fond of the services and benefits the borrowing funds.
And with the Cameron card dog-eared, no longer a trump to beat Labour, the Conservatives have little else in the pack. One of the best MyDavidCameron.com re-mixes substituted Tory guff on “cutting the deficit not the NHS” with, next to Cameron’s face, the words: “George…Osborne? No, can’t say it rings a bell”. The Shadow Chancellor’s recognised internally as a liability, a vote-loser. He’s not the only one. The Tory team is so substandard that its members are kept largely in the shadows to avoid frightening the voters. Chris Grayling, Theresa May, Eric Pickles, Liam Fox – these politicians are not vote winners.
Asked to name popular members of his frontbench, Cameron identified William Hague and Ken Clarke before running out of names. The only Tory with genuine widespread support, that professional jester Boris Johnson, wasn’t mentioned by Cameron because the two detest one another. Cameron resents being overshadowed. Johnson humiliated his junior in the Buller, but Cameron is now his senior in the Tory Party.
To be a one-man band is a potentially fatal weakness for the Tory Party, when Cameron is off-tune and hitting the wrong note when he blows his own trumpet.
Watching last Sunday night’s Channel 4 drama on Mo Mowlam was to be reminded of how Labour fought the 1997 general election with a cast of politicians reasonably well known to the British public. They included Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, John Prescott, Robin Cook, Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett, Jack Straw, Margaret Beckett and, of course, Mighty Mo herself. Some I respected, a few I liked and admired. Labour, however, indisputably put on the pitch 13 years ago a team the Conservatives are unable to match.
The lexicon of political soundbites includes the cliché about oppositions not winning elections, governments losing them. Well, Labour’s stopped losing and the Conservatives aren’t winning. If Brown matches fear of the Tories with positive reasons to vote Labour, he’ll be the comeback kid. I know – I sometimes can’t believe it myself.
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